The old adage is football games are won or lost in the trenches, an often overused and tired phrase, but one that holds significant weight among head coaches and their respective staffs.
It's the idea that regardless how talented your skill players are on the outside or in the backfield, if a quarterback's sight lines get obstructed by an overbearing defensive front he won't get the ball out with any sort of accuracy or consistency, thus handicapping the unit's progress.
Urban Meyer lectures often about the importance of talented defensive tackles and ends with regards to recruiting, saying no matter what your depth chart looks like in that group you always make room if a special player at either spot wants to come to Ohio State.
The Buckeyes missed out on a series of huge names at defensive tackle in the latest recruiting cycle, notably when Rashard Lawrence (LSU) and Antwuan Jackson (Auburn) spurned the Buckeyes to stay down south. Ohio State plucked Nick Bosa and Malik Barrow from Florida high schools St. Thomas Aquinas and IMG Academy, but the latter is recovering from a knee injury this spring as an early enrollee and the former doesn't arrive until June. Bosa partially tore his ACL his senior year of high school.
Meyer is certain Bosa will contribute this fall for the Buckeyes, who are desperately trying to fill the shoes of his older brother, two-time All-American Joey Bosa, another All-Big Ten performer in Adolphus Washington and seniors Tommy Schutt and Joel Hale.
With spring practice dipping into its latter half this week at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, Meyer remains reserved about what he's seen from those players next up on the interior of the defensive line. Among them include Mike Hill, Tracy Sprinkle, Donovan Munger, Davon Hamilton, Robert Landers, Jashon Cornell, Dre'Mont Jones, Dylan Thompson and Joshua Alabi.
"There's a lot of bodies, just not anyone stepping up to the forefront yet," Meyer said Tuesday.
Meyer singled out Hamilton and Landers, two redshirt freshmen he said improved despite not playing a snap in 2015. Hamilton caught Meyer's eye March 26 in the team's first scrimmage of the spring and Landers spent this spring throwing for the Ohio State track team.
"I just talked to Davon Hamilton's family and boy he's really falling out of his shell a little bit," Meyer said that following Tuesday. "He's a guy that's doing pretty good."
Meyer hasn't been shy on praise for defensive end Sam Hubbard either, someone he believes must be a star next season in Columbus. But Hubbard and Tyquan Lewis—who started in 2015 but is missing time this spring after shoulder surgery—are in line to bookend the defensive end rotation this fall. Hill and Sprinkle have the early lead to start at defensive tackle, but Meyer and defensive line coach Larry Johnson want to rotate as many as 10 bodies up front to provide constant pressure on opposing quarterbacks.
Both Cornell and Jones came to Ohio State as highly ranked defensive ends, but Johnson has them working inside this spring after redshirting 2015. It's clear he and Meyer are shuffling the cards to see if somebody will explode.
"The inside position is one that we really gotta (go)," Meyer said March 8, the first day of spring drills. "Guy out there that we moved inside was Jashon. He did a heckuva job. We're looking for that quick twitch. Dre'Mont is another, those are two puppies that have to play for us."
Cornell didn't practice much Tuesday because of what Meyer described as a "little midsection pull," and Hill is battling a high ankle sprain. Bosa is sure to be part of the plan once he arrives, provided he remains on schedule with his rehab.
But Meyer wants more, and knows the clock is ticking on establishing a rotation at defensive tackle in spring practice — just like on the rest of his roster.
"(This week), just because of where we’re at, shut it all down because we have to make some hard decisions coming up here," Meyer said. "There’s some guys that are gonna play and some guys that aren’t gonna play."
